D-t's review
At Swim-Two-Birds (John F. Byrne Irish Literature Series)
by Flann O'Brien
D-t's review
At Swim-Two-Birds (John F. Byrne Irish Literature Series) by Flann O'Brien
D-t's review
rating:
a book about a student who is writing a book about an author who writes a book whose characters rebel against their author and hatch a plot to kill him. one of these is himself an author and is enlisted by the other characters to write a book in which he will liberate them by killing the author who created them (preferably with razor).
it sounds like a horrible, confusing, pretentious, self-referential plot, but it's not (and keep in mind that it was written in 1939, long before italo calvino and paul auster got hold of the metafiction idea and bled it to death). At Swim-Two-Birds is populated by an increasingly bizarre cast of characters including irish folk hero finn maccool, two coarse cowboys escaped from a western novel, an invisible fairy, mad king sweeny (another mythical irishman), and a suave devil (complete with tail) named the pooka mcphellimey.
these are all characters in the novel of a character in the novel of a character in At Swim-Two-Birds. they have grievance...more
it sounds like a horrible, confusing, pretentious, self-referential plot, but it's not (and keep in mind that it was written in 1939, long before italo calvino and paul auster got hold of the metafiction idea and bled it to death). At Swim-Two-Birds is populated by an increasingly bizarre cast of characters including irish folk hero finn maccool, two coarse cowboys escaped from a western novel, an invisible fairy, mad king sweeny (another mythical irishman), and a suave devil (complete with tail) named the pooka mcphellimey.
these are all characters in the novel of a character in the novel of a character in At Swim-Two-Birds. they have grievance...more
